Author
Topic: Installing Xorg + Nvidia driver (Read 1977 times)

Hi! Great project, got everything up and running in no time! Even Firefox and its new dep on pulseaudio =/ (thanks to the forum btw)

One last thing to make things perfect though is to get the video a bit faster (mplayer complains it`s too slow when I try to go Fullscreen). I read somewhere this can be accomplished by installing Xorg (maybe with the graphics ext). I`ve got another distro here which can do video faster on the same machine, so it`s probably my fault here.

I`ve followed the instructions and it seems I can`t get the graphics card driver to work, because when I get a xorg.conf from the nvidia-xconfig utility then startx fails on "waitX" (I remove xorg.conf to get it to work again but then nvidia XServer settings says I`m not using the driver). OTOH it could be something else on the xorg.conf

I`m stuck now, any help would be appreciated.

~~A few more details (please feel free to ask anything that may help diagnose this):

-- tried both nvidia driver extensions (it`s a onboard geforce 6100, on a mpc51 nforce chipset from 2006). I have not tried both "firmware-nvidia" (cause it says it`s for Tegra) and the 304.131 (cause the link pointed by the info doesn`t seem to include mine, although both other ones include it, thus I tried both)

-- placed the driver before Xorg (on the onboot.lst), then on the very top, didn`t help.-- also tried the Xorg 3D ext..-- the instructions on the nvidia driver mention a few other packages (3d-dev, xorg-server-dev) that may be needed to install, but it seems this would be required for running the nvidia-xconfig (it even goes as far as saying how to create the /etc/X11 directory, which I already have), so I did not try that.-- also installed the graphics-4.2.9-tinycore.tcz-- Removed Xvesa from onboot.lst

The only difference I noticed was a little sharper (anti-aliased probably) after the 1st round of attempts (when it asked about resolution and depth, so this could be it as well, not necessarily got anything working)

oh.. he he he ^.^strange, this time I forgot to backup xorg.conf and the opposite happened, now X did *not* start (same fail on waitforX).. after regenerating the file, it worked, but then nvidia-settings could not properly detect the max resolution, and topped at 640x480, which I`ve found to be kind of cheating that Mplayer now *did* run at a proper speed I suppose I could manually edit the monitor entry on xorg.conf for the resolution? `cause if I do it through nvidia-settings(actually even then I have to do it manually but) it only changes the "spanning" (I have to drag the mouse over the edges to see the rest of the screen, resolution still low)

> But first are you using TC-7.2 ?

I downloaded it recently... yes, when I type 'version' at the console it replies 7.2

> use APPS, tce-ab, or tc-load -wi

I'm using APPS (tho the instructions have us leave X to replace it, so had to use tc-load)

btw, I had a little issue with APPS in that it seems it can't add or remove to the onboot/ondemand lists without root privileges. Although I'd guess adding/removing stuff from the system would be something only root should be doing, I'd say it's rather confusing to n00bs :-D specially since it says I shouldn't be running as root for some other tasks (I can't browse the repo when running by sudo, for instance). This apparent contradiction led me to believe I did something wrong in the installation, 'cause I did a "manual frugal", if there is such a thing so perhaps some permissions are off, say the cde was supposed to be on a read-only media or something. (but in that case, the doc (overview/faq) about using unetbooting should add a chmod command to the renaming of cde to tce?)... anyways.. I digress.

> which driver and version is it using successfully?

Curiously, it seems to have both installed (nv 2.1.20 and nouveau 1.0.13, both with the option to upgrade that last version number by 1, but I won't dare since it's working hehe) but, regarding nv, it says: "This driver is largely obsolete, usually the Nouveau driver will provide better results." So I'll try your latter suggestion, that was pretty much what I was looking for but for some reason I mistakenly thought tc didn't had it. Thanks

> Also, You could install Xorg-7.7

Yes, I used the 7.7 for the above experiments (now I`m using the 3d version).. I was pretty sure the nouveau driver would work but, waitforX again.. what should I place at the driver section of xorg.conf? tried nouveau to no avail.. the entire name "xf86-video-nouveau"? I`ll check what the other box uses when I get around to booting it.

thanks!

PS.: btw, is there an easier way to get text from the terminal? it seems vim was compiled without clipboard :-D had to use the vanilla editor on wbar... lol

> Hold the left button and drag the mouse in the terminal to highlight the text you wish to copy. Move the mouse to where you wish to paste. Left click to give it focus and center click to paste.

Yes, vim hijacks this behavior with its "visual mode" =( This does work with less or even plain vi tho..There seem to be some options to make any copy inside vim go to the system clipboard however.. I`ll check that.

> I used a command like this

The command did work to change things but it changed exactly the way from earlier. I have to scroll the screen..

It`s as if it can`t detect the monitor, it even calls it "CRT-0" in the settings.. perhaps when it thinks its a CRT, it limits the max resolution to 640x480 (actually it was some other weird value, 640x320 I think).. maybe it doesn`t even bother to send the signal to change resolution? (thus my suggestion to change the "monitor"/device section from xorg.conf manually, is there a way to do this?)

The other distro also uses "no-conf" so that wasn`t productive to suss this out.

A couple videos didn`t get the "your cpu is too slow" from mplayer this time (in all CAPS, how rude! o.O), still got from a bigger one but only *after* I try fullscreen. Couldn`t quite tell if the resolution on those videos deteriorated under this "virtual" resolution. The icons do look nice, and yet they are bigger...

Tested back with Xorg 7.7 (without the 3d) and also removed the drivers altogether (from onboot), it seems to fall back ok (I guess xorg will load vesa automagically?)

No idea how to proceed.. at least we know that driver is being loaded. (but why hasn`t nouveau worked?)

This apparent contradiction led me to believe I did something wrong in the installation, 'cause I did a "manual frugal", if there is such a thing so perhaps some permissions are off, say the cde was supposed to be on a read-only media or something. (but in that case, the doc (overview/faq) about using unetbooting should add a chmod command to the renaming of cde to tce?).

The cde folder needs to be renamed to tce and the permissions need to be set to tc:staff

you mean owner and group, right? (my knowledge of this stuff is a bit shaky) if so, ls -l claims this to already be the case.

> if you copied from read-only media.

extracted from the .iso (which has probably set up permissions as if it`s going on "rom", i guess)

so.. /tce was 575, changed it to 775.. *.lst were 464, changed them to 664.. that should fix it. =) Thanks. (ondemand/ was already 775, but since tce/ was read-only that`s probably why firefox_getLatest could not add it to the menu)

But back to the original problem.. could it be some other extension taking precedence over the driver or something? Here`s what I`m booting at the moment: (with the 1st couple items made redundant by Xorg, maintenance claims)

I guess it thinks all is fine since it can access the driver and set different (though low) resolutions? But I used this suggestion to figure why nouveau isn`t working.. the other distro is indeed using it (also confless though), and arch docs mention it requires KMS, which seems to be working here and I also see a drm extension, so it is all there. Moreover, this time X actually started! (now I cant remember if there was a xorg.conf laying there before I tried changing the driver section to "nouveau", probably since now it at least starts X even though falls back to VESA)

So, it does find the driver, it does load it, it does manage to match it to the correct card (notice I also have a Radeon there, on pciX, which would also be cool if we managed to activate, but the other distro has problems with it so I guess it would be even more complicated, when I try with TC it displays only a cursor on the nvidia card, which I assume it did change the desktop over, and at least it didn`t crash.. can`t ctrl-alt-backspace but can ctrl-alt-del)

The problem is it cannot find and open /dev/dri/card0 Looking there, there *is no* /dri inside /dev

So I wonder if this is also another symptom of the permissions thing from the "install"? When I installed just now pci-utils to check which card it was matching it to, the underlying script for APPS was unable to add it to onDemand list, although now I can do it inside APPS without running through sudo.

I don't see it anywhere. Not in the .lsts, not in the directories (tce, optional), nor in the "installed" (from the control panel 'stats'). Worse, can`t find it on the repo either, the only thing with 'kernel' in the name are the sources.

> I think you should be using the binary nvidia 304 driver (or the radeon, if you want to use that one).

Yes, tried that in the previous attempt. Did it again to get the logs, it seems it can`t get the monitor EDID.. also this ACPID is suspicious: